“How do you know this?”
“Because I have seen him. Laforêt, whom I had sent for to keep a watch on these people whom I suspected, and who has doubtless paid with his life for his zeal and devotion, followed him last night, and we both spent part of the night in tracking his movements. We were present at his conferences with the leaders of the strike at the Soleil d’Or. We heard him give his orders to his acolytes. It is he our unhappy workmen obeyed, without knowing it, seduced as they were by the rabid language of the leaders. This is the villain who, secretly, and from a distance, directed the riot, and set fire to the works!”
“But how could he know that the written formula was in the table of the laboratory? Why did he come here?”
“He came here because I ran off to the fire and left my post. He has, somehow or other, received precise information.”
Baudoin stopped. He gave his young master a look of anguish.
“Ah, Monsieur Marcel, must I speak? Will you pardon me?”
Marcel turned pale. All the same he said, in firm tones—
“Speak. I insist upon it.”
“Well, then, this man, for the past week, has been living at the Villa de la Cavée.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Marcel. “Hans! This villain?”